The Energy/Health Connection

One in every 13 Americans has asthma, and we spend over $50 billion each year treating it. But did you know asthma attacks (and several other health issues) can be alleviated with better energy efficiency?

Energy efficiency policies and programs reduce pollution by offsetting the need for additional generation from power plants. Increasing energy efficiency and targeting programs to those most vulnerable for health issues (e.g. the elderly, people with existing chronic conditions, residents living in areas of higher pollution) improves public health while avoiding additional healthcare costs.

There are many paths to building a highly energy efficient new home, including Passivehaus, Living Building Challenge and the soon-to-be-released ASHRAE 90.2 standard. Policies designed to save energy are also driving up demand for efficient housing. California, for example, will soon require that all new homes be zero net energy.

Given increasing interest for such innovative homes, it’s not hard to imagine a future in which people across the country are able to just pick their favorite energy efficient home from a subdivision full of zero net energy (ZNE) homes.

Over the last year, MEEA launched an initiative aimed at helping members better understand the intelligent efficiency revolution now upon us. This effort, which began as a simple collaborative for meeting and sharing knowledge, revealed that many stakeholders have both a strong interest in learning more about the application of intelligent efficiency concepts and technology, but also reluctance about technical details, new products and vendors, EM&V and other challenges.

November 2015 marked the final month for an innovative pilot conducted by MEEA in partnership with Argonne National Laboratory, AEP Ohio, Dayton Power and Light (DP&L), several Ohio commercial product distributors and other groups. The six-month pilot was designed to test a novel incentive program model aimed at distributors of v-belts, a common piece of equipment used in heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) applications. Cogged v-belts (also known as notched v-belts) are about three percent more efficient at power transmission than smooth v-belts and are commonly recommended to replace smooth v-belts in industrial and commercial energy audits.

MEEA Staff members Greg Ehrendreich and Mark Milby presented on Wed., Aug 5, at the 2015 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Industry in Buffalo, NY.